MicroScope's top stories, week ending 3 December 2010

The father of British computing, Sir Maurice Wilkes, died this week at the age of 97. In the 1950s a machine based on his EDSAC design became the first computer to be used for commercial applications, laying the foundations for the b2b sector.

Virgin Media Business has become the second supplier to sign up for the government's Public Sector Network plan, which aims to provide affordable voice, data and network services to the cash-strapped public sector.

Novell says that a year after it began promoting its Intelligent Workflow Management message to the market, its approach is beginning to pay off.

Best of the blogs

This week, Quicke off the Mark examined the link between the Chinese government and recent DDOS attacks on Google as exposed in the Wikileaks scandal, while the BusinessMan looked at the government's new rules on migration.

Meanwhile, Network Noise reported on how high-performance networks are supporting the scientists at CERN as they search for the elusive Higgs-Boson particle, while IT in Context played agony aunt to a distressed reseller.

This week, IndependenceIT unveiled the 4.0 version of Cloud Workspace Suite, which features a number of enhancements; Knowledge Vault launched a partner program for its cloud-based analytics-as-a-service platform; and more.

Of all the managed services types that solution providers can potentially offer, managed communications has proven to be among the knottiest. Learn about the difficulties involved in delivering them and evaluating prospective partnerships.

Value-added resellers and service providers interested in reselling Aruba networking hardware and software can learn the benefits of becoming an Aruba Networks partner with this standardized checklist. Compare Aruba's reseller partner program with other vendors' offering similar products.